


I bought it downtown, as I was on my way to meet you

by orphan_account



Series: All Alone. [2]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series, Silent Hill
Genre: Consensual underage, F/M, I just think Heather & Flora would be amazing friends okay?, Luke is slightly older than canon, M/M, implied Heather/Douglas, implied Layton/Luke, loli-ish, shota-ish, slight crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flora makes a new friend, about whom the Professor is somewhat suspicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I bought it downtown, as I was on my way to meet you

The Professor had been waiting outside the little café where he and Flora were meant to meet for about half an hour now. He was telling himself not to worry, because the chances of anyone hurting Flora while Barton and Chelmey tailed her were slim to none. But telling himself not to worry was one thing; actually ceasing the dreadful thoughts from entering his mind was quite another. He checked his watch again, biting the inside of his cheek. It wasn’t like her to be so _late_.

Layton should have been ashamed when Luke’s voice crept into his head and murmured, _Don’t worry Professah. Flora can handle herself. She’s stronger than you give her credit for_. It really wasn’t normal for grown men to hallucinate the voice of their thirteen-year-old apprentices, and yet hearing Luke talk to him was an almost daily occurrence. Admittedly, it was also one he hadn’t tried prevent.

Layton massaged his right temple as he shoved the pocket-watch back into his jacket pocket. His day had been stressful enough, what with Rosetta’s persistent hints and the coffee maker absolutely exploding in a manner that even he couldn’t fix (he really should call Paul about that), without the added worry of his absent surrogate daughter and the guilt trip that hearing Luke’s voice always sent him on – especially when it said things like that. _She’s stronger than you give her credit for_.

Many times the Professor had debated taking Flora along with him, especially when it seemed her need to be close to him was at least half petty jealousy over the amount of attention Luke received. Which in itself was rather strange because, at Clark had pointed out, Luke wasn’t Layton’s child (and Layton was unbelievably thankful for that). Flora, on the other hand, was. It was for this reason that he was so protective of her, yet stating the issue that way made it seem as though he didn’t care for Luke’s safety. He did, very much – it was something to which Emmy, could attest, if she was still around. Luke had also been with Layton for much longer and was very pointedly his _apprentice_ , as he reminded anyone who questioned his steady existence by the Professor’s side. But saying this to Flora would have been an insult, implying that she wasn’t as capable as Luke. There was no way of winning this argument, though the Professor had tried many times. If he’d thought the fights would stop after Luke left, he was wrong.

He nearly missed Flora approaching as he battled the two perspectives in his mind –the one which said, as her legal guardian, he had every right to panic and know where she was; and the other, in Luke’s voice, which reminded him that Flora was a fully grown adult and capable of walking herself from the lecture hall to the café down the street without getting kidnapped (even if Clive had proved that theory incorrect). He was shocked to see that Flora was running, and the paranoid voice in his head shouted _I knew it!_ , and he prepared for trouble the nearer to him Flora came. His defensive stance dropped, however, when he saw the young girl, nearly Flora’s age, being dragged behind her.

‘Professor!’ Flora shouted, and Layton had to close his eyes to keep the image of Luke, shouting the same thing in the same tone whilst pointing in different directions, from entering his mind. It was problematic, as the Professor had no desire to accidentally call Flora by the wrong name – and at the same time, forcing the thoughts from his mind pulled his face back into a grimace. Trying to explain this sort of situation never went over well with other people, even the ones like Flora who tried desperately to be understanding.

Flora stopped short just in front of the Professor, chest heaving from exertion and sweat breaking out on her forehead. The girl behind her looked so vulnerable and terrified that Layton nearly apologized on Flora’s behalf. She was a little taller than Flora, though not by much, with cropped dirty-blond hair and…clothes that were, frankly, a little inappropriate for the weather. She had no sleeves, and only a white vest to cover over some sort of orange shirt. Her eyes were brown and wide, her pale face nearly illuminating the freckles on her cheek.

‘Professor,’ Flora started again. ‘This is Heather. I just found her asleep on a park bench, and she hasn’t anywhere to go. Do you think she could stay with us until it’s safe for her to go back to her house?’

The Professor took a deep breath, in which he meant to analyse the situation and all its possible outcomes. He could be objective about this whole thing, he decided, even as Flora’s eyes grew wide as disks and Heather tried to hide herself behind her newly found friend.

* * *

In hindsight, the Professor probably should have said no. It wasn’t that Heather was impolite or a poorly behaved guess, but the truly ethical thing would have been to take her to the police and have them help her home. She must have had some bad experiences with law enforcement in the past, however, as the mere mention of Inspector Chelmey and Constable Barton startled poor Heather enough that she accidentally knocked the spoon out of her tea and scalded her knees. She didn’t seem to notice, though, and that was just the first in a long line of things that the Professor found odd about Heather Mason.

Her name was yet another oddity. He’d met women and girls named Heather before, and the surname Mason wasn’t all that obscure, especially for an American. But when either he or Flora called her name, she reacted slowly to it, as though not recognizing it as her own at first. She was skitterish about the smallest of things as well, eyeing all food and drink with suspicion and looking at the sharp and heavy objects which littered the Professor’s home, as though trying to catalogue which would be most useful in the event of a physical altercation.

At the same time, he found that he couldn’t deny anything of Flora. She had so few friends to begin with – especially female friends – and the two were getting on so well together. Heather, who had been so skinny when she first arrived, was filling out normally. Flora made her wash her hair and drug her to lectures, explaining smoothly to her professors that Heather was a visiting cousin. In return, Heather introduced Flora to a variety of…interesting life skills, including how to start a contained fire in a bucket and how to kill insects in a pinch. She was good at puzzles and traded them often with Flora, but it almost seemed as though she was preparing Flora for something much worse than normal, everyday issues.

It didn’t help that Heather had near-constant nightmares.

Heather wasn’t one to go about alerting the whole house when things got terribly wrong. She was, in that way, so different from other teenagers that Layton had known. Every other teenager that Layton had met was desperate for attention. Heather seemed to hate it, and would take any route necessary to avoid being seen or heard. There was one night, however, when she couldn’t help it. She’d fallen asleep in Flora’s room while waiting for Flora to return from her walk with Clive (who now, occasionally, was allowed out specifically to see Flora), and Layton heard the screams before she woke, and the sobs after she did.

Layton stood outside of Flora’s room, unsure of how to proceed. Flora never had nightmares, and Luke liked to pretend he never did (and Layton pretended that Luke never crawled into bed with him after these non-existent nightmares, because you simply didn’t talk about things such as that, let alone acknowledge them). Heather was a homeless young woman he’d known for nearly a month now, but he knew so little about her that he wasn’t sure of the appropriate calming method. So he did what every good English gentleman should do, and made tea.

* * *

Heather managed to make it down the stairs in her night clothes. They were a bit more revealing than the professor thought they should be, but she wasn’t his child and he wasn’t about to dictate what she could and could not wear. She startled to see him steeping their tea and started to turn around when his voice interrupted her.

‘Heather. Please sit down.’ Harsh enough to be commanding, soft enough to not frighten. Heather nodded and sat at the far end of the table, hands in her lap and gaze directed downward. The professor placed her cup and saucer before her, and sat down close enough to ask questions and hear their answers reasonably well.

‘What is your real name?’ he asked.

He’d been expecting her to be shocked, or to deny that there was any other name besides Heather to which she belonged. Instead, she took a sip of her tea, and answered. ‘Cheryl,’ she said. ‘Heather is my middle name. Although some people call me Alessa,’ she grimaced, as though regretting bringing it up. ‘Please don’t ask who calls me Alessa. Not now.’ She closed her eyes and looked away, whispering, ‘You wouldn’t believe me anyway.’

‘But it’s not normal for you to go by Heather?’

Heather – Cheryl – turned the cup slowly, letting it warm up her fingers. ‘I’d just gotten used to being called Cheryl again. I had to hide that name for the longest time. But there are people trying to find me again, and so I had to lose the name.’ She ran a hand through her hair, and let her elbow hit the table, still supporting her head. ‘I should probably find a more creative name. They’ll be looking for a Heather now too, come to think of it.’

‘Who’s looking for you?’ the Professor asked.

Cheryl shook her head. ‘I don’t think you’d believe me, even if I told you.’

‘Fair enough,’ the Professor said, and it was true. He didn’t much believe in the supernatural, and if this girl thought she was being chased by demons he would have to earn her trust and put his own bias away. ‘Where are your parents?’

To his great surprise, Heather’s eyes filled with tears. In the short time that she’d been with them, she’d put on a strong front – cold, almost, to the point of sociopathic. But now the Professor saw the little girl she felt like, and had to resist the urge to protect her. Despite himself, he wondered what Luke would do now, what he would say about her. How much of her story he would believe.

‘I don’t… I don’t have any parents,’ Heather answered. ‘I never knew my mom, she died in a fire. And Harry – my father – he was killed, they were trying to get to me –‘ she shook her head, covering her eyes from the Professor.

‘My sympathies,’ he said. ‘How did you make it to London?’

‘That’s the thing,’ Heather said. ‘I don’t know. Douglas told me to run, and I just _did_.’

‘Who is Douglas?’ he asked. ‘A friend of yours?’

Heather blushed, batting hair away from her eyes. ‘Sort of, yeah. He’s a bit older than me, but he’s helped me through so much, y’know?’

The Professor narrowed his eyes in concern. ‘Have you and Douglas entered a sexual relationship?’

Heather’s face turned completely red, her mouth gaping comically. ‘What? – no! No! I mean, he’s sorta attractive for an older guy, but no. No! He’d consider that age-inappropriate.’

‘Do you mean to say that, were it not for his protestations, you might have considered a relationship with him?’ the Professor asked. His exterior remained cool and unchanged, and if there was a slight tremble in his voice or hands that betrayed his anxiety at the question, Heather didn’t notice. She was concentrating on a point somewhere in the distance, looking out a window.

‘I think…that life where I come from is too short to worry about what other people think wrong or right is. Even now I’m not sure what the status of our relationship is – or was. He hasn’t caught up with me, so I guess he never made it.’ Heather tried to appear cavalier about the realization, but her voice wavered just enough for the Professor to notice. ‘He’s just one more person I never got to say goodbye to,’ she whispered.

‘Heather –‘

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t pity me, and don’t ask me any more questions. Not tonight. I can answer everything you and Flora want to know at a later date. Tomorrow even. But not right now. All it’ll do is make the nightmares worse.’

The Professor nodded, and sipped at his tea, remaining silent for a few minutes as if to prove his respect of her request. When Heather started to take a drink of her own, he spoke up again. ‘Is there anything about me that you would like to know? About our life here?’

Heather didn’t hesitate. ‘Flora’s not really your daughter, is she?’

The Professor crossed one leg over the other and let his hands, folded, sit in his lap. ‘Not biologically speaking. Flora is a member of the Reinhold family, a very rich and eccentric family that used to reside in the countryside.’

‘Why did her parents send her off with you?’

‘They didn’t,’ he answered, and continued before Heather could get another question in. ‘Her mother died when she was very young, and her father died some time ago. He was very protective of his daughter, and outlined the responsibility of her wellbeing in his will. She was to go with whomever could complete a series of tests – one of which was to make her smile.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that her father was looking for a husband for Flora, and not a guardian?’ she pushed.

The Professor leaned back in his chair a bit, smiling slightly. Heather was much quicker than he had initially thought. ‘Yes, the thought had occurred. But I would never press a lady to do something she did not wish to do. Flora has never, to my knowledge, had any such inclinations toward me, and I have never presented the matter to her.’

‘So… you don’t intend to marry her?’ Heather asked calmly.

The Professor shook his head. ‘Flora is not really my… “type.” That’s how people describe it now, yes?’

Heather nodded quickly, and let her eyes drift as she thought. The Professor had started to take another drink when the next question arose. ‘What about Luke?’

The Professor choked on his tea, blushing at his own un-gentlemanly behaviour. Heather, on the other hand, laughed. It was the first time, to the Professor’s knowledge, that she had done so since arriving at his house. Or since arriving in England, for that matter. ‘Honestly,’ he chided, ‘What would even make you ask such a thing?’

Heather shrugged, still smirking. ‘Flora just said that you haven’t been the same since Luke left. I just sorta assumed Luke was your boyfriend or something. She didn’t really elaborate, I thinks he was kinda sad about it to. But like, holding back on it so she could take care of you.’

The Professor wasn’t sure what part of Heather’s statement he should react to, and blinked solemnly as he compiled responses in his head. ‘You don’t have to be so calculated, you know,’ Heather said softly. ‘Just say whatever’s on your mind.’

‘That wouldn’t really be gentlemanly, Miss Cheryl,’ he replied, smiling sadly.

‘Maybe not to the English, but I’m American. We’re all about impassioned speeches, and I think that’s good sometimes. It lets people know what you’re really thinking and really feeling, without any filters.’

The Professor swallowed, and sighed before beginning. ‘Luke was… well, he called himself my apprentice, but that’s not an entirely accurate statement. I had been friends with his father when we were younger, but we’d been out of touch until Luke forged a letter in his father’s name, asking me to come to Misthallery and solve a mystery.’

Heather laughed. ‘God, I like this kid already. So why’d he call himself your apprentice?’

The Professor shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know, but I don’t suppose there was a better description. Luke was exceptionally good at puzzles, and I suppose he was never thoroughly stimulated at home. His father was the mayor, and I don’t think he had very many friends. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure his father had a lot of time for him. When – when a colleague of mine and I arrived in Misthallery, Luke had taken to shutting himself in his room and refusing to open the door for anyone.’

Heather frowned and rubbed the back of her head. ‘You say “was” a lot.’ The Professor nodded in agreement. ‘Do you mean – did Luke die?’

‘What?’ the Professor shouted in alarm. ‘No! No, no. He’s living in America now, with his father. Has been for…’ It was the Professor’s turn to look away in mock distraction. ‘It’s been nearly a year, now that I think of it.’

‘Do you still keep in touch?’

The Professor grimaced, and avoided Heather’s gaze. If she was anything like Flora, she’d be disappointed in his answer. ‘Not really. Luke writes, but I am never quite sure how to respond.’ He felt Heather’s gaze lingering, and it occurred to him, absurdly, that she could maybe tell that he wasn’t giving her the entire truth. ‘His father asked me to stop responding to Luke’s letters.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Clark was fairly adamant in the belief that my relationship with Luke had grown rather _inappropriate_. I am unsure how many of his words were written out of spite that Luke rarely returned home, but I am aware that Luke often spoke of me at length, and I suppose this made Clark uncomfortable.’

‘How old is Luke now? How long was he with you and Flora?’ she asked.

The Professor closed his eyes and counted in his head. It always felt as though more time had gone by than actually had. ‘Sixteen. He should be nearing Seventeen sometime soon,’ he sighed. ‘He had been living with me for approximately five years. Flora had only been around for two of those. Before her, there was an assistant named Emmy.’

Heather blinked in surprise, and he could understand why. He hardly ever talked about Emmy, especially now that Luke was gone. ‘What happened to Emmy? Did she have asshole parents too?’

The Professor laughed loudly, just once, and covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Clark really isn’t that awful. He is trying to be the best parent that he can. Just because you or I do not agree with his choices does not make him a bad person. As for Emmy –‘ the Professor smirked, happy to show Heather’s own words back to her. ‘Please, for the time being, do not enquire about her. I am not sure I am ready to discuss the nature of her departure from our lives, nor am I certain you will believe it.’

Heather’s eyebrows raised. ‘Wow. Okay then.’

The Professor smiled, and noticed that he felt rather warmly toward Heather now. Like he knew her. Like he couldn’t relate to her. ‘I feel that it is now time for us to retire, and hope the Flora will be back at a reasonable hour. Although she is with Clive, I do believe prison officials monitor their activities. I am not overly thrilled, but I am also not as worried.’

Heather let her mouth hang open a bit as her head tilted to reveal her confusion. ‘ _What?_ ’

He shook his head. ‘I will leave that for Flora to relate to you. Or for Clive to do so, if you would like to visit him.’

Heather now looked moderately worried, and the Professor counted this as an odd sort of victory. Whatever Heather had seen in her life before arriving in London had obviously been quite scary. It was comforting to know that the real world could be just as confusing, just as worrying.

‘Good night, Cheryl,’ he said as a hint, and Heather grumbled as she set her teacup and saucer in the sink and started to trudge off toward Flora’s room.

She stopped in the doorway and turned, just enough for the Professor to hear her ask one last question. ‘Do you think Luke will come back to you, once he’s old enough to leave?’

The Professor smiled in sadness, an unfortunately common occurrence for him. ‘I don’t know. I have always hoped so. It depends mostly, I believe, on whether he can forgive me for abandoning him in the way that I have.

‘And now, dear Cheryl, I really must insist that you go to bed.’


End file.
